Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - pre-salt

The sheer amount of orders already placed and expected for drill ships and rigs is pushing the new Brazilian shipbuilding industry into raising its game in order to compete for driller orders.Petrobras alone is responsible for ordering a total of 28 drill ships of which 9 have already gone through the tendering process and will soon start being built. Transocean is building 9 drill ships at international shipyards, including the Petrobras 10,000 drillship at the Samsung shipyard in South Korea, the ship being already pegged for a 10 year service contract with Petrobras. Noble has 3 drill ships and 2 drill rigs slated to start five to six year contracts with Petrobras.

CVD Vale is developing a new synthetic diamond drill bit for the Brazilian pre-salt drilling operations which will soon be tested by Petrobras.CVD Vale is a Brazilian company located in São José dos Campos in the State of São Paulo. They specialize in manufacturing high grade synthetic diamonds for industrial use. Next month two CVD Vale prototype diamond tipped drill bits will start being tested by Petrobras at selected pre-salt plays. According to company founder Vladimir Airoldi.” We´ve made synthetic diamond fillings produced from gases for the drill bits, a pioneer initiative in the world”. According to Airoldi, the big differential with this technology is the greater durability of the drill bit…

Petrobras is likely to anticipate by 2 or 3 months commercial O&G production at the Tupi pre-salt field.The initial schedule for commercial O&G production at the Tupi pre-salt field held December 31 2010 as the maximum deadline for start-up. The revised schedule calls for commercial production start-up to begin in September or October 2010, anticipating the production by 3 months. This will make it possible for the government to have 2 pre-salt fields in commercial production before the presidential elections, scheduled for November 2010. Commercial production at Tupi is expected to be around 100 million barrels per day (bpd), from 5 production wells to be connected to the BW offshore FPSO Cidade de Angra, currently being adapted at a shipyard in China.

According to major Brazilian O&G market sources, the official Brazilian pre-salt area boundaries will have to be expanded due to various pre-salt discoveries beyond presently acknowledged frontiers.Companies such as Petrobras, Repsol, Anadarko and Shell have made important pre-salt discoveries away from the Picanha Azul area where the Tupi field is located and where all the blocks drilled presented commercial hydrocarbon accumulations. Repsol is making history in Brazil with block ES-T-737, where they are drilling to a goal depth of 7,500m (24,606ft). Repsol is hedging on finding oil under the salt layer in an area beyond officially recognized pre-salt boundaries.

Petrobras has announced it will start producing today the first oil from the pre-salt layer of the Baleia Franca Field, which is located about 85 km from the city of Anchieta (state of Espírito Santo), in the Parque das Baleias area.The Baleia Franca Field´s pre-salt accumulations were discovered in December 2008. The Production will start through the connection of well 6-BFR-1-ESS to the FPSO Capixaba, chartered to Petrobras by SBM and previously operated in the Golfinho Field. Aiming to anticipate the production at the Cachalote and Baleia Franca fields, the platform was moved to Parque das Baleias, after some changes in its process plant. The Baleia Franca pre-salt well will start producing approximately 13,000 bpd of light oil, estimated at 29º API.

Corus Tubes manufactured the thickest UOE 18” ever made especially for deepwater pipes at the Tupi field, in the Santos Basin.Corus Tubes has successfully manufactured 118km of 457mm x 31.75mm Grade X65 sour linepipe for the Petrobras Tupi project. This linepipe is designed to operate in Brazil’s Santos Basin at a depth of 2200m, and is thickest 18” UOE pipe manufactured to date. The design criteria allowed for fatigue and corrosion concerns as well as depth/collapse issues, and this led to the demanding and previously untried thickness to diameter ratio (t/D) of 0.0695. Some innovative steps were taken by Corus Tubes to control pipe shape, a critical element for subsequent laying of the pipe and collapse performance.

The recent discovery of hydrocarbon accumulations under the Albacora Leste field´s pre-salt layer confirms there potential of the Campos Basin to be a significant pre-salt producer.The recent oil discoveries in pre-salt layers under certain Petrobras concession areas in the Campos Basin are already being considered significant and tend to offer the possibility of production start-up in a much shorter time frame than the major pre-salt discoveries in the Santos Basin. This is due to the fact that the fields under which these new discoveries are located already have production infrastructure in place and whatever new subsea wellheads are installed will only need to be connected to one of the FPSOs, FSOs or rigs already in place.

Aker Solutions do Brasil Ltda. was recently awarded a large subsea contract by Petrobras to supply subsea trees for two of Brazil's pre-salt areas. With this latest contract and the previous contract for subsea trees at the Tupi field, Aker Solutions has secured its presence in all the pre-salt fields presently being developed by Petrobras.Aker Solutions do Brasil Ltda. has signed a frame agreement with Petrobras to supply 40 subsea trees for the Iara and Guará fields, located in the challenging pre-salt area of the Santos basin offshore Brazil. The contract is of approximately USD 300 million. The scope of works includes engineering and manufacturing of 40 vertical subsea trees for 2.500 meter water depths, subsea control systems and 17 complete tool sets.

New discovery at the Tupi field confirms Tupi potential and another new discovery in an ANP block, to be included in onerous concession contract with Petrobras.In early April 2010 Petrobras Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. announced that it finalized the drilling of another well in the Tupi field which confirms the potential of the pre-salt reservoirs in that field. The new well, 3-BRSA-795-RJS (3-RJS-666), and informally known as Tupi OW, is located in the area of the Tupi Evaluation Plan, at a depth of 2,131 meters, nearly 270 km of the coast of Rio de Janeiro, and 12.5 km northeast of the discovery well, 1-RJS-628 (1-BRSA-369), known as Tupi.

The FMC research center will be located at the technology center inside the UFRJ campus, which already houses other important international research centers and CENPES research center, owned by Petrobras.FMC will be the fourth major international O&G service provider to establish itself at the UFRJ technology park, joining Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Halliburton (still in negotiations). Expectation are high that with this great influx of researchers and investments in the UFRJ Technological Park, it will soon become the biggest O&G research center in the world, it is already acknowledged as being at the forefront of deepwater technological research.

This new pre-salt discovery in the Campos Basin, highlights the potential for new discoveries in both the pre and post salt layers of this mature basin, which up to now has been the main O&G producer in Brazil and until recently was considered by many as not having much more to give in terms of new reservoirs.Petrobras announced the discovery of a new accumulation of light oil (29o API) in the pre-salt layer of the Campos Basin, in water depths of 648 meters at the Marlim field. Marlim is located in the north-eastern part of Campos Basin, in water depths ranging from 648m to 1,050m. It has some 102 production wells and 50 injection wells. Over 80km of rigid pipelines and 400km of flexible lines have been laid on the field.

The new discovery in the Caratinga field along with the possible confirmation of of the extension to the Barracuda field, raise expectations for the existence of an extensive pre-salt system in the Campos Basin.Petrobras has announced the discovery of two new light oil accumulations (29o API) in reservoirs in the Campos Basin's post- and pre-salt areas, by means of the drilling of well 6-CRT-43-RJS, known as Carimbé. The discovery was made by means of the drilling of well 6-CRT-43-RJS, known as Carimbé, located in Caratinga Field, about 106 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of 1,027 meters. The accumulation discovered in the post-salt reservoirs is nestled 3,950 meters under the seabed.

The new Subsea 7 pipeline manufacturing facility and spoolbase will mainly serve the deepwater pre-salt developments at the Santos Basin. Subsea 7 has been active in Brazil for 15 years and has its main offices in workshop in Niteroi, in the state Rio de Janeiro and a spoolbase close to the city of Ubu in the state of Espirito Santo. Although construction of the new plant and spoolbase hasn´t started yet, Subsea 7 is only waiting for a state environmental license to begin building what is to be named the Paraná Subsea Construction Park. The company will invest $100 million and expects to create 600 direct jobs at the new site. Subsea 7 earned $2,4 billion worldwide and $848 million in Brazil in 2009.

Although not considered a major challenge by Petrobras, drilling two thousand meters below the water line, through about three thousand meters of sediments, and through two thousand meters of salt is done at the frontiers of technology.Drilling at a depth of two thousand meters is not a problem. Petrobras already has several wells at this depth, in Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico, and produces at 1,886 meters in the Campos Basin, a mark that was once the world record (Shell currently holds the record, at more than two thousand meters from the water line in the Gulf of Mexico). The biggest challenge is the layer of salt, which, under high pressure and at high temperatures…

The purpose of the Geoprober Drilling System (GDS) is to reduce the cost of acquiring G&G data for exploration activity in deepwater by 50%.They plan to achieve this by establishing a well in a one trip operation. This speeds up operations and improves data acquisition options and reduces the environmental impact of exploration. Geoprober Drilling was established in 2004 as a new kind of data acquisition drilling contractor, specialising in deep water exploration in areas such as West Africa, Brazil, India and the Far East. Geoprober is currently developing a deep water exploration drilling system deployed from a mono-hull vessel on a (JIP) Joint Industry Project funded by Chevron and StatoilHydro.

This new ANP discovery is the 2nd largest pre-salt discovery to date in Brazil and highlights the excellent potential of the Brazilian pre-salt.The ultra deepwater well (2-ANP-1-RJS ) was drilled at an area which has been named Franco, it lies 2.189 meters deep and the 4,5 billion barrels of light oil are of around 30º API. The well is located 195km from Rio de Janeiro and 41 km from the Iara pre-salt field, which has a recoverable oil potential of 3 to 4 billion barrels. Both are located at the Santos Basin. The Tupi field, also at the Santos Basin is still the largest discovery to date in Brazil, will a recoverable oil potential of 5 to 8 billion barrels.

Among the many challenges facing E&P in the Brazilian deepwater pre-salt plays, is that of anchoring the flowlines, platforms, FPSOs and even buoys to the seabed which can be over 2000 meters deep. Petrobras has developed a simple and efficient method of doing this through the Torpedo Pile.In the case of the deepwater pre-salt plays in Brazil, specially at the Santos Basin, the distance from land to some of the proven plays like Tupi and Iara, which are around 300km from shore and pose complex logistics problems even on surface structures. Challenges, such as how to anchor a deepwater rig or FPSO to the seabed 2,200 meters down must be resolved. It is a long distance for anchors to travel, normally four or more anchors are used and these anchors need to be aligned.

The two new discoveries in one well, announced by Petrobras last Thursday, strengthen the thesis pertaining to the possibility of the existence of a great reservoir beneath the salt layer of the Campos Basin. The Campos Basin pre-salt shows its potential even if volumes are less than at the Santos Basin, as various factors related to logistics, production timeline and development costs make this possibility very attractive to players and specially to Petrobras. As is widely known, the Campos Basin is presently responsible for over 80% of the Brazilian O&G production. The discoveries indicate the existence of hydrocarbons in both the pre-salt and the post-salt layers in a single well at the Barracuda field in the Campos Basin, 100km from the coast of  Rio de Janeiro.